Home » UK ISP News Archive » Monthly Archives: June 2015 (116 Posts Found)

ISP News Archives for June 2015

Cumbria UK Council Signs Extended BT Superfast Broadband Contract

30th Jun 2015 (0 Comments)

The Cumbria County Council in England has today signed a new Superfast Extension Programme (SEP) contract that will extend the reach of BT’s superfast broadband services to several thousand additional homes and businesses in the area.

West Sussex UK and BT Sign Extended Superfast Broadband Rollout Deal

30th Jun 2015 (6 Comments)

The West Sussex Better Connected scheme in England, which is working with BT to expand the coverage of “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) to around 98% of local homes and businesses by Spring 2016 (90% will get “superfast” speeds of 24Mbps+), has signed a new deal that will extend this to another 3,000+ premises by the end of 2017.

EE Top of the Worst in Ofcom’s Q1 UK Telecoms and TV Complaints Report

30th Jun 2015 (1 Comment)

The communications regulator has today published their latest Q1-2015 consumer complaints report, which saw overall complaint volumes continue to fall across most of the major UK mobile, pay tv, fixed line phone and broadband sectors. But the news isn’t so good for EE, which has seen gripes surge.

Watered Down EU Deal to Protect Open Internet and End Roaming Charges

30th Jun 2015 (1 Comment)

After years of disagreement the European Parliament, Council and Commission claim to have finally reached a deal that will both “end” mobile roaming charges on 15th June 2017 and introduce “strong net neutrality rules” in order to protect open Internet access. But some of the rules have been watered down.

Customers of UK ISP PlusNet Braced for September 2015 Price Hikes

30th Jun 2015 (13 Comments)

Low cost Internet provider PlusNet has announced that a raft of new price rises and hikes will hit customers of their fixed line phone and calling services from 2nd September 2015, with both standard line rental and annual pre-paid line rental saver services seeing some of the biggest increases.

UPDATE West Yorkshire and BT Agree Extended Fibre Broadband Deal

29th Jun 2015 (6 Comments)

The Superfast West Yorkshire project in England, which is aiming to roll-out BT’s “high-speed fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services to 97% of local homes and businesses by the end of September 2015 (708,000 total premises), has signed a new £13m deal to extend this to another 28,000 premises.

UPDATE Sky Demand Ofcom Open UK Competition Inquiry into BT Openreach

29th Jun 2015 (16 Comments)

Sky (Sky Broadband) has used the backdrop of Ofcom’s on-going strategic review of the UK’s digital communications market to formally demand that the national telecoms regulator launch a competition review of BTOpenreach, which manages BT’s underlying broadband and phone infrastructure.

The Q2-2015 Top 7 UK Fastest National Home Broadband and Mobile ISPs

29th Jun 2015 (0 Comments)

The second quarter has seen the average Internet download speed for the largest seven national home broadband ISPs increase from 24.72Mbps in Q1 to 25.47Mbps now, while the average for the primary Mobile Broadband operators reached 15.99Mbps (up from 14.42Mbps in Q1). Virgin Media remains the fastest fixed line provider and EE dominates mobile.

Scientists Have Broken One of the Biggest Limits in Fibre Optic Networks

28th Jun 2015 (6 Comments)

One of the biggest limitations in ultrafast fibre optic communications is that even optical signals can weaken over long distances, which requires expensive electronic regenerators (repeaters) to be placed along the route to boost the signal. But what if you didn’t need those? Future networks could be both faster and cheaper.

UPDATE3 BT’s Broadband Rollout Deal for Devon and Somerset Collapses

26th Jun 2015 (31 Comments)

The second round of contracts for the Government’s Superfast Extension Programme (SEP), which is designed to push UK coverage of superfast broadband (24Mbps+) services from 90% in early 2016 to 95% by the end of 2017, has in some cases struggled to reach a deal with BT and the latest contract to fall foul is for Devon and Somerset in England.

PlusNet, Virgin Media and Post Office Rated Best for Customer Service

26th Jun 2015 (6 Comments)

Broadband and phone providers PlusNet, Virgin Media and the Post Office have come top of a new survey of customer service quality, which questioned some 14,000 respondents about their experiences. Sadly TalkTalk / AOL and EE could all be found at the lowest rated end of the scale.

Huawei Test 1Tbps Capacity Upgrade for Existing Fibre Optic Networks

26th Jun 2015 (0 Comments)

Proximus and Huawei have trialled a new upgrade for existing core fibre optic networks that could help to upgrade current capacity from 200Gbps (Gigabits per second) to 400Gbps or even 1 Terabits per second, which would be used to meet the ever rising data demands of modern broadband consumers.

Sky Adds FREE Setup to 6 Months Half Price Unlimited Fibre Broadband

26th Jun 2015 (0 Comments)

UK ISP Sky Broadband will later today enhance their on-going offer of 6 months half-price Sky Fibre Unlimited (up to 38Mbps FTTC), which reduces the monthly cost from £20 to £10 per month, by removing the £30 one-off activation fee for existing customers who want to upgrade.

Gigaclear Deal Brings 1Gbps FTTP Broadband to 4,500 Essex Premises

25th Jun 2015 (13 Comments)

The state aid fuelled Superfast Essex project in England has become to latest to break with the tradition of BT contracts by agreeing to a new £7.5m deal with Gigaclear, which will see 4,500 premises in the Epping Forest area benefit from their “ultrafast” 1000Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk to Work on New Business Broadband Code

25th Jun 2015 (0 Comments)

The UK telecoms regulator claims Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk have all agreed to help address the problem of poor business broadband speeds by jointly working to build a new Code of Practice, which is similar to the code that already works to protect consumers from slow Internet speeds.

BT Raises Price of Superfast Broadband 76Mbps BTInfinity Option 2

25th Jun 2015 (16 Comments)

The word went out this morning that the standard price of BT’s superfast broadband (up to 76Mbps) BTInfinity Option 2 (FTTC) package has increased by +£2 to £30 per month, which is in addition to the cost of Phone Line Rental from £16.99 per month (or £15.29 if you pre-pay for a year in advance).

BT Wants to Scrap Traditional UK Phone Services Within 10 Years

25th Jun 2015 (13 Comments)

Hands up how many of you still make regular use of your fixed line phone to make calls? Probably not many. In that sense the news that BT are pushing Ofcom to relax their regulation so they can close their traditional phone network and move customers to a new Internet-based system will not come as a shock.